Staying faithful: Xylose reductases (XRs) are highly promiscuous enzymes and are of great interest for the biosynthesis of xylitol—a very desirable sugar substitute. However, the expensive purification of the substrate D-xylose from the impurity L-arabinose plagues the industrial implementation of XRs. We have engineered a XR that preferentially reduces D-xylose over L-arabinose (see figure). This is one of the very few cases in which a promiscuous enzyme has been engineered to prefer one natural substrate over another.
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Nair et al. (2008) studied this question.
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